Search - Cream :: Wheels of Fire

Wheels of Fire

Jeffrey Winholt | Daufuskie SC | 11/22/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I first bought Wheels of Fire when I was a teenager (in vinyl,of course, 8 track tape was available, and than cassette tapes became available). I'm guessing that it was first released in 1968. I played it so often I wore it out, so I had to buy a second copy. Wheels of Fire has a nice collection of music, Crossroads is full of hot guitar runs, and this song is still played on the radio today 40 years later. Classic. Crank it up. The other live tracks, Spoonful, Traintime and Toad, give all three members of the group (Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker, and Eric Clapton) a chance to show off. White Room is perhaps the most frequently played, but I think it is one of the lesser songs on the album, I prefer Sitting On Top Of The World, Politician, Born Under A Bad Sign. If you like classic rock, Wheels Of Fire is a timeless piece of history.

Jeff Winholt"

My Second Favorite Cream Album Next To "Disreali Gears"!!

MUZIK4THAPEOPLE!! | Seattle & San Diego | 07/13/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Having heard "Disreali Gears" with full adult understanding

and musical appreciation at the age of 17 in 1981, I set about

exploring the rest of the albums which made this "super-group"

so great to my father's generation. As a kid I had always heard

certain songs by them, but as a kid you never fully "get it"

the way you do when you're older and have experienced life.

This one, 1968's "Wheels Of Fire" ranks in as my second favorite

album by CREAM. Songs like "White Room", their blazing psychedelic

reading of the Robert Johnson blues classic "Crossroads", "Toad",

Wille Dixon's "Spoonful", "Passing The Time" and "Born Under A Bad Sign"

are the ones that drew me into this one first.

I just love the rawness, experimentation, and the trio's

fearlessness to embrace all the funk and the griminess of

bluesy psychedelic rock in a way that few of the european

persuasion had ever dared to! They were a group who was very much

in the van garde of their times, yet they were very true to the past

and unpolished soul of the blues which fueled their flights of

psychedelic rock fancy! (-:

In other words, these guys understood and had a healthy

respect for the artists who had pioneered blues music,

so they could walk sure footed into what it was they were

trying to communicate.

THAT IS what I think gave CREAM their edge over most

of their competition in their time.

Anywayz, having said that, this is a pretty solid follow up to

"Disreali Gears". There are few tracks on here I could do

without today because they're dated, but overall, I still give it 4 stars."